Drunk or Not

There's a short story this week in the Washington Post....local episode. The DC attorney general had to admit that 400 DWI's in DC....came from faulty data.

What they hate admitting now....is that a number of the breath test machines that they had....had been adjusted, by the cops.

So there is message going out to drivers that the city had convicted. You can imagine this massive lawsuit coming out of this deal. It's believed that the reading off these adjusted machines...were twenty percent higher than what it should have been.

My guess is that the typical guy will demand over $100k (figure $20k goes to his attorney and taxes eat up $25k)....so he walks home with $55k for a fraudulent DWI conviction. Some folks might have good reputations....and can afford to run off to court....and maybe collect $1 million.

The city? They have to be a bit upset and wondering what idiot adjusted the machines. And then they have to wonder how they will pay for this episode. The answer? Higher fees on drunk driving.....that's my guess.

The Bradley Problem

I'm not going to cover alot over Bradley Manning and the story unfolding this week.

You can Google the episode and read up on the kid.

Basically....he joined the Army and has spent four years as an intelligence specialist. At some point....he became disenchanted with the US direction in the Iraq war....disturbed over both US military leadership and political leadership....and decided that only the massive release of classified information would change the outcome of things.

The US military goes to great lengths to safeguard information from the Chinese and Russians. We conduct investigations over folks to give security clearances out.....to ensure they can't be bribed or blackmailed.

So this episode has shocked the military and has implications.

Bradley is currently sitting in a military jail and likely spending several hours a day going over his story. The investigators want know the full bit of damage that he's done.

What he apparently did....with great ease....was download messages and video from classified systems.....and then pass to WikiLeaks. No one is really sure about how much. It may take six to twelve months to fully paint in the picture of what he did.

The continuing problem now is finding the guy who runs WikiLeaks....and convince him to cooperate. So far, they can't find the guy. He's like not in the US....and I'm guessing that he has lots of friends helping to hide him.

The problem here? There is some belief that Bradley downloaded over 200,000 US State Department messages....and this could lay out things that could damage the US in several aspects. They'd like to recover all the messages and cleanse the server holding them. My guess is that it's too late and a dozen odd-ball characters are reviewing the thousands of messages to lay out a massive case against the US.

So back to the real issue here.....we have a society change and a problem we'd prefer to avoid.

In 1980.....if you were in military intelligence....everything was paper and you had limits. You had a couple of aspects of the overall process in front of you....but the general and the President had ten times that amount of data given to them. So you kinda trusted these guys to know what they were doing.

Today? With a open but highly classified network system....you can review a hundred classified messages a day....and browse for hours. You can download videos and chat with really intelligent folks on missiles one day, and the drug-war the next. So folks think they are getting fairly smart....and eventually believe they know as much as the general does....or the President. This is Bradley's problem.

Toss in the media situation where "experts" arrive on CNN and explain how the US government is wrong, or the US military has the wrong tactics in place, or some reporter who lets you know that America is "evil".....and a guy could lose track of his compass positions in life. I'm guessing these all helped Bradly arrive at a pretty drastic situation and make him think that he could save America....by releasing classified information.

What happens now? Well....the guy who runs WikiLeaks has a limited amount of time that he can run freely. I'm guessing that several governments are going to be interested in finding this guy.

Bradley? Well.....if they have the log files from the computer as he downloaded the data....they really don't need to negotiate much with him.....so they could charge one crime for each single document that he stole.....meaning 200,000 charges. Naturally....this adds up to over 200,000 years. Maybe they can package a deal....just forty years in prison and some cooperation involved. The end result? Bradley spends most of his entire life in prison....likely solitary....because he's a security threat in a regular open prison environment.

I'm guessing saving America is about the last thing on Bradley's mind right now.

The future of data storage with the military? This is a curious thing. I'm guessing that they will realize they have to lock down the data....with no ability to transfer data or move it....unless you use a prescribed procedure and someone witnesses what you are doing. External hard drives will start to disappear as well. Burning classified data to CDs or DVDs....even in support of the mission? That will go up in smoke....I'm guessing.

Then there's this problem of how to convince folks that they really aren't as smart as the General or the President....and can't be saving America by releasing information. I'm thinking that this is the hardest problem of the whole situation. There might be three hundred Bradley's out there today....and we really don't need them trying to "save" us.

It was simple in the old days....just protect intelligence from the Russians and Chinese. Now? We gotta protect data from Bradley and a bunch of guys who want to "save" America.

World Cup

The World Cup of soccer started yesterday. I realize most of you folks aren't into this. Up until four years ago....I wasn't either.

I think up until 2006....I had watched a total of four soccer games in my life and it didn't make alot of sense. Then with the German World Cup of 2006.....I sat and watched a couple of games. And I began to understand the basic rules....the driving force....and the 'tricks' involved in scoring.

Then I watched Zinedine Zadane...the old French guy who was finishing up his career...and carried the French team to the finals of the 2006 World Cup. The clip attached has the five-star show of the 'tricks' that this guy could do (throughout his career).

So today....is the American game...against the UK. To be kinda honest....I'm pulling for the UK.

New Police Concept?

Sometimes...you will catch a story in the news...which kinda shocks you.

Yesterday....the Russian parliament voted to give more power to the cops, and the pieces and parts of the old Soviet KGB. They will be able to pursue and even summon people....who they "think" are about to commit a crime. Yes, you read that correctly....they haven't committed the crime, but the cops think that they were thinking of committing the crime.

Naturally, this disturbs alot of people.

"Police state" was a phrase used by Vladimir Ulas, who is actually a member of the Communist Party.

The bill in question....hasn't finished all the requirements of the national parliament....but it's gone through the first stage of reading the bill.

The key phrase in it? A legal summons can be brought up if the cops think a guy is "causing or creating the conditions for committing a crime."

You can imagine a law like this in the US....where cops could arrest people and just say they looked criminal or looked evil.

My guess is that it'll pass...last three years...and the cops end up admitting it created more business than they could ever handle....and the court system released ninety-eight percent of all the guys arrested under this concept.